Mari's Pages

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Just mentioning the amazing villa and the service we received in An Bang would be enough, the wooden furniture, the care of details, the exquisite mix of plants in the garden, the round windows in the bedrooms, the outdoor bath tubs and all. But that’s one kind of luxury only. I also planned a jet-set, queen-of-pop, top-notch-pampering stay. Because, heh, I could.

My friends and I parted right after our beach stay, so I headed to a bigger city to readjust to normal life and get ready to return to Japan. I booked a 5 star hotel in Da Nang, the major town in central Vietnam, which came with a whole range of services that I would have never being able to afford elsewhere…ahhhh, bless Vietnamese currency low value, cheap cost of life and tremendously advantageous exchange rate!

The buffet breakfast was huge and varied, the pool was nice, as were the poolside cocktails, the room was great, the location well picked (Han river side), a souvenir shop with gracious items was just downstairs of the hotel. So, basically, as being a woman alone in a new city, I didn’t have to go too far to get what I needed. All of that contributed to make the transition from amazing beach life to bustling city life soft.

I was impressed by the amount of coloured lights that are used in this city: from the color changing “rainbow” bridge to the fire spewing dragon bridge (guess why the name), from the mile-long beams from the Sky36 bar atop my hotel to the changing patterns on the hotels side. I mean, they do really like all that stuff. It was like a Las Vegas for the romantic, an awe-generator for dreamers.

Da Nang is a fast growing modern city, with first class beaches, thousands of dining options for all wallet sizes, several rooftop bars and clubs where only the newly rich Vietnamese kids can go to, a lot of traffic and construction sites everywhere. Although I didn’t really intend to leave the hotel at all, as suntanning by the pool for another few days seemed just right, I spent one afternoon exploring near and far sites.

Thanks to the lucky coincidence that a dear friend of mine from Japan (with da knowledge) was in Da Nang for work, I met with him and he took me to some interesting places, like the covered food market. The ground floor was dedicated to dry fish, crackers, coffee, various cooking paste jars, teas, rice and the like. In separate areas were the fruit and the fish sections. The upper floor was instead crammed with beautiful fabric, clothes and shoes stands, where all women pulled out their best tourist-chasing weapons to convince us to buy stuff.

An impressive sight (heh, Mother Nature!) was Marble Mountains, a cluster of five mountains used in the past as marble caves, and named after the five elements water, earth, fire, metal, wood. Nowadays the mountains are a fine sightseeing site. We visited the water mountain, which boasts several temples, caves, a pagoda and has an impressive lookout point from where one can see the Han river delta and the other four mountains. Some of the tunnels to visit the caves were so narrow and dark that we gave up, also because we were not wearing an adventure-approved attire. By the entrance to the mountain were a bunch of souvenir shops that sell, guess, marble sculptures, statuettes and all sort of stone accessories.

On the same afternoon, I also tried the traditional Vietnamese clothes on, because my friend said it was fun. I chose an outfit that was my size, including the cone stray hat, and I posed for a few photos. It was fun indeed.

The cultural tour ended in a Vietnamese restaurant not far from my hotel serving fabulous food (including half chickens with heads!). I did very well for an afternoon out, I’d say.

I should have perhaps dedicated some more time on a river bridges sightseeing tour. There are in fact four main bridges (all decorated with color changing led lights, of course), each different, and are the city’s pride. One of them, the Han Bridge, even swings open to let bigger ships sail the river up and became the city symbol. A lot of stuff happens along the river, as rivers in Vietnam are used for transport, commerce, fishing, and all activities that contribute to the economy of this rapidly growing country. Maybe another time I will hop on a boat and sail along the Han river to admire these architectural wonders from close.

With Da Nang, my holidays come to an end. But were the perfect break. Too many things were left unseen, unexperienced, but after all we’ve got to leave some of them behind to have a reason to go back.

Saturday, October 1, 2016

One of the best kept historical sites in Vietnam is Hoi An, a testimony of a glorious colonial past and, since 1999, UNESCO world heritage site.

This town was one of the country’s main ports in the past, and was heavily influenced by the French presence. The old town is well preserved, restricted to traffic, all original buildings are now turned into shops and cafes where hordes of tourists each years go and buy souvenirs from. Every street of the old town, every corner is picture perfect, flowers and vines decorate all facades, lanterns inside and outside. Colourful fabrics are on display, handicrafts and roasted coffee beans lure visitors, on the river are kayaks manoeuvred by old people in stray hats. Even the rotten-looking brown waters of the river were perfect next to the lush green vegetation and the white grey clouds in the blue sky.

I could finally see a sunset, I mean while watching the sun go down…the Vietnam coast is on the East, which means the sun sets on the opposite side, somewhere behind the mountains. But this particular time of the year, this particular location along the river, which runs west to east, allowed all us to rejoice of the mystical experience. Even more so, because the day I was in Hoi An was a special day, it was the day of the harvest moon festival. This year in particular there was even a super moon! No better chance to be right there right then.

The old ritual of thanking the gods and praising them for the good harvest during the autumn full moon is a tradition of many buddhist societies. In occasion of this special celebration, people make paper lanterns that are later let float on the river. The touching atmosphere gets even more magical and mysterious in Hoi An, where public illumination is switched off, so that the only lights guiding people are the moon (if visible through the clouds) and the shops and restaurants.

These days, since Hoi An receives increasing numbers of tourists each year, its has become a habit of celebrating the full moon every month. It actually works, because hotel bookings increase in the days around the full moon, restaurants make more money, the city cashes more money. Yes, in fact, many of the attractions, like museums, gardens, temples and special landmarks impose an entrance fee, in addition to the fee all visitors entering the ancient town site (except those staying at hotels there) have to pay. On this note, I don’t understand why people would want to pay for crossing a bridge…so, there is this Japanese covered bridge, something vaguely reminding of the covered bridges in Venice, which is the most photographed attraction in Hoi An. It is pretty, OK. But, I mean….pay to walk through it? Doesn’t taking a picture of it from _outside_ make more sense? Whatever.

Not only Hoi An is famous for its architecture and history, but also for being the best place where to get tailored clothes. Half of the shops in the old town are dressmakers, they showcase a huge selection of fabrics and expert tailors can renovate your wardrobe in a few days for a very cheap price.

Hoi An was just a stone’s throw away from our (my friends and I, remember?) temporary beach residence. So close that it actually made sense to rent a motorbike for a day. I could have gone by bicycle also, but the ones we got from the house were in no conditions to carry us along a trafficked and dark road. By all means, deciding on a moped was the best thing ever, but we worried a little. When we arrived in Hoi An, we just parked along a road, next to other parked motorbikes. Sure of our whereabouts, when we went back in the evening to get our rented wheels, in the place of all the motorbikes were souvenir stands. We concluded the police had taken our bike and so we were f*cked as we didn’t know how to handle the situation when, trying to communicate with the women sitting behind their stands, we learned that the bike had just been moved to another place, so that people could set up their selling booths. Phewwww!

Getting out of the city center was another adventure per se, but we survived and returned having collected another bunch of great experiences for the day.